


Should Lanterns Shine

by tabacoychanel



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-10
Updated: 2012-07-10
Packaged: 2017-11-09 13:32:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabacoychanel/pseuds/tabacoychanel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You still my girl?" "Always."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Should Lanterns Shine

_I have been told to reason by the heart_

_But heart, like head, leads helplessly_

_I have been told to reason by the pulse_

_And, when it quickens, alter the actions' pace_

 

*

 

“It could be worse,” said Sam.

“How?”

“Well, at least you won’t die a virgin.”

“You’re not going to die a virgin, Sam.”

“Only because Pyp and Grenn are planning to get me a hooker for my eighteenth birthday.”

Jon opened his mouth to deny it. It was supposed to be a surprise.

“Tell them it’s a waste of money. Tell them to get me an external memory drive instead, okay?”

“All right,” said Jon. Then, “You’d probably talk the poor girl’s ears off anyway.”

Sam blinked at Jon through thick, horn-rimmed glasses. “No, I guess that wouldn’t be the point, would it.”

The way he said it made Jon suddenly defensive. Jon had had plenty of conversations with Ygritte when their mouths weren’t otherwise occupied. He said, “Obviously it’s not the _whole_ point.” __

“Nobody ever claimed to like talking better than fucking, though,” the other boy observed.

There was nothing Jon could say to that. If he closed his eyes he could still feel the phantom brush of Ygritte’s fingers ghosting over his fly.

“You know, I’m the one who was just dumped on my ass,” Jon reminded him.

“Sorry.” Sam looked sheepish. 

“You’ll find someone. You will.” _I did_ , he thought. _Didn’t I?_

 

*

 

The first time Ygritte had guided him inside of her, he’d lasted maybe two minutes. Just the sight of her lips inches from his cock was almost enough to undo him.

“Sl- slow down.” It had come out half a wheeze, half a gasp. Ygritte had paused, head cocked to one side. She had straightened in order to stroke his cheek, as if to calm a skittish animal.

Afterwards she told him it wasn’t the worst she’d ever had, and Jon took it as high praise.

 

*

 

Sometimes he thought Sam was a bigger romantic than Sansa.

One night a year ago Sansa had come home with her right eye ringed in bruises. Arya had roused the boys against her sister’s protests, and Robb and Jon had lain in wait for Joffrey after school, and the little git had not dared show his face near her - or any of the Starks - again. Sansa, of course, had promptly gone and gotten involved with an excessively tattooed, hideously disfigured thirty-one-year-old ex-con who could probably bench-press her one-handed. Either he never hit her, or she’d gotten better at hiding the evidence from Arya.

Arya was fuming. “What the hell does she think she’s doing? Didn’t we just rescue her from a creep like that?”

“Maybe she didn’t want to be rescued,” said Jon.

“Do _all_ girls turn into imbeciles when they turn sixteen?”

“Give Sansa some credit, yeah? Joff was a world-class creep. Sandor is … honest about what he is. Besides, I know at least one girl who isn’t going to let anyone walk all over her.” He tapped the bridge of Arya’s nose playfully.

This failed to elicit the desired smile. Arya chewed her lip, the way she did when she was concentrating very hard. “You wouldn’t let it happen to me?”

Jon looked at her, at her birdlike bones folded in a heap at the edge of his bed; at her huge brown eyes, luminous in a small upturned face. When he spoke all trace of mirth had left his voice. “I’d skewer him with a steak knife first.”

 

*

 

There was a thing she did with her tongue, pressing one of his balls against the roof of her mouth while cupping the other one in her left hand and with the index finger of her right she would circle the tip of his cock. The feel of nail scraping against foreskin was agony.

He groaned. He could lose himself in the stroking of her clever fingers and the soft warm cave of her mouth and the pressure of her tongue, God in heaven her _tongue_. He was going to come. He wanted  to come inside her cunt,  wanted her legs wrapped around his waist urging him to thrust harder, deeper. He grasped her shoulders to pull her astride him.

His phone went off.

She sucked both balls into her mouth.

“Ygritte,” he gasped. “ _Ygritte_.”

She was lapping at him with her tongue now. He could feel her tighten her grip on his cock. Her mouth was hot and wet and he was close, so close.

“Ygritte, I have to take Arya to hockey practice.” It was the hardest thing he’d ever said. 

Later, Jon would wonder where he found the strength to push her away. When he got in the car he was still half-hard. He was terrified Arya would notice, but she chattered blithely on. He waited until she’d jogged off - turning twice to wave - before he let out his breath. Then he slammed his fist into the dashboard with enough force to make his fingers go numb. “Fuck.”

 

*

 

It occurred to him he ought to have resented Arya more. Ygritte was two years older than Jon - sexy, confident, glamourous, experienced - and Arya was just his kid sister, the one who still begged him to play Monopoly, whose idea of a good time was going out for mini-golf and ice cream. When he asked her point blank about Ygritte, she’d made a face. “I don’t like redheads.”

Jon just looked at her and waited.

Arya shrugged. “Fine. I still don’t like your girlfriend.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s your girlfriend, stupid.”

Arya was right. It was a stupid question, and he was stupid for asking it. That was one thing she and Ygritte could agree on.

 

*

 

Breaking someone’s heart (even if you broke your own in the process) required a ruthlessness that Jon suspected he did not possess. It seemed to come easily to Ygritte, and that was what riled him - that it didn’t hurt her like it was hurting him.

“It wouldn’t work," she explained. That was all.

He wanted to throttle her. He wanted to screw her senseless. It took all his resolve not to fall to his knees and beg. “Look, we could give it a shot. Just for a month. See how it goes.”

“And then?” she prompted.

“We could - I’d come back. For Christmas, for Easter. In the summers.”

“And then we’d fuck. In the summers.”

“For fuck’s sake, Ygritte -”

She laid a hand on his arm, and Jon wanted to slap himself because even now - _especially_ now - his body’s response was involuntary. “Wouldn’t work,” she repeated. “You’re a good man, Jon.”

As if that had anything to do with it.

 

*

 

He didn’t go out with Robb that weekend. He didn’t go to Bran’s recital, either, and he felt bad but it couldn’t be helped. He badly needed to smoke a joint, but Robb wasn’t around - in retrospect he should have gone with Robb and gotten wasted at an anonymous party - and Jon’s hands were shaking too hard. He was debating whether he needed alcohol, sedatives or both when the knock came.

“I know you’re in there,” she called. “Are you going to make me pick the lock?”

He let her in. Her gaze fell immediately to the stack of cigarette papers on his desk. “If you tell me those are for Bran to clean his clarinet keys with, I _will_ hurt you.”

She was too sharp for him, as usual. He felt a smile tugging at the muscles in his cheek. “So you didn’t buy that one, huh?”

“Course not,” she scoffed. “Sansa uses dollar bills on her flute and they work much better. Plus she doesn’t have to explain to Mom why she needs cigarette paper.”

She locked the door behind her and drifted over to peer at the Ziploc bag he’d forgotten to shove out of sight. When she looked back up there was a stubborn set to her mouth. “So how do we do this?”

“We?”

“Me, then. If you could do it yourself you’d have done it by now.”

This was so patently true that there was no point in arguing. There was very little point in arguing with Arya when she got like this. He sighed, defeated. “First thing you do, you disable the smoke alarm.”

After that they made short work of it; Arya was a quick study. He gave up his chair and watched her from the bed. “You sure you’ve never done this before?”

She snorted. “You wouldn’t let me, remember?”

“I was looking out for you, kiddo.”

Arya paused. “Jon,” she said. “How come you won’t let me smoke with Gendry but you’ll teach me to roll blunts?”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

 _You’re my little sister_. She was also Gendry’s best friend; Catelyn Stark’s daughter; Coach Forel’s protege. _She’s not mine_ \- _never has been_.The acknowledgement arrived as a punch in the gut.

When she was done he insisted they smoke the actual joints in the woods, well away from the house. (“Why did you make me disable the smoke alarm then?” “It’s a good habit to get into.”) Jon could imagine the expression on Catelyn Stark’s face, should she ever learn of the latest manner in which he was corrupting her little girl.

“Is this where you and Robb come?” asked Arya.

“Sometimes,” he admitted.

She was sitting on a tree stump, gazing up at the sky. “I used to hate it when the two of you went off together. I wanted it to be like it used to be - before you guys found out about drinking and drugs and girls. When I used to be the only girl in your life.”

There were a thousand things he wanted to say - that she came first with him, that she always had. It was the thought of Ygritte that stilled his tongue.

In any case Arya didn’t give him the chance. “Are you going to tell me why she broke up with you, or do I have to get it out of Sam?”

“She doesn’t believe in long-distance relationships,” he replied honestly. “I tried to talk her out of it … She kept saying ‘It wouldn’t work.’”

Arya was silent for a while. Finally she said, “Last summer I tried to convince Gendry to go to hockey camp with me. He’s more than good enough. But you know what he told me? He said, ‘Sorry, princess, some of us have to work.’ He gets paid what, eight bucks an hour, and him and his mom and his sisters can’t even get by for six weeks without what he makes? Not to mention what the camp itself costs. I don’t even know what the camp costs. How much does your tuition cost, Jon?”

He swallowed hard. “More than Ygritte makes in a year.”

He cursed himself for a fool for not seeing it. It didn’t make the dull ache of loss go away, but it did make him feel like a prize idiot. Then again, Jon was used to girls making him feel like an idiot. _Christ. Arya, of all people_.

He said, “If you want to get high with Gendry, it’s not like I can stop you.”

“I want to get high with _you_ , egghead.” Arya brandished the joint in her left hand. “Obviously.”

“Right,” he said. He squatted down in front of the stump she was occupying and rested his hands on her kneecaps. “Listen, in the fall. After I leave. Stay out of trouble till I come home, okay?”

She nodded, and her smile warmed him. “So we can get into reams of trouble as soon as you’re back?”

“Something like that.”

He liked that she had said _we_. He liked making her smile.

“Jon, I don’t want you to leave.”

He realized then that there was something else he would have liked even more, which was to pull her into his lap and let his palms rove over her ribcage and press his lips to the smooth column of her neck. He watched her chest rise and fall and felt her thighs tense under his fingers, and decided he was one sick son of a bitch.

“I’ll come back,” he assured her. At the moment it was unclear to him why he needed to leave in the first place.

“Promise?”

“Of course. Have to come back for my girl, don’t I?”

Damn Ygritte. Damn her for leaving him here with a hard-on for his fourteen-year-old sister. Damn her stubborn red-headed hide to hell.

He was well on his way there himself.

 

*

 

When her Aunt Lysa got married the second time, Arya was one of the flower girls. Rickon was a ring bearer and the bride waddled down the aisle more slowly than either of them. During the reception Jon decided to make himself scarce, because though he was nominally a wedding guest, his absence from the festivities would make things less awkward for everybody. At thirteen, Jon already had plenty of practice at knowing when he was unwanted. Arya found him playing Tetris on his phone.

"I looked for you everywhere," she told him accusingly.

He shrugged and patted the grass next to him.

She sat down, tucking her knees under her chin. "How do you stand it?"

"What?"

"Growing up."

"Oh." Jon considered. "It's not so bad. Though I gotta admit, getting married seems like more work than it's worth."

Arya wrinkled her nose. "When I was little, for the longest time I was convinced I was going to marry you - until Sansa said I couldn't."

Jon well knew the effect of Sansa forbidding Arya to do anything. He waited for her to go on.

"So I figured we'd do it just to spite her."

He laughed. "As long as Sansa's scandalized I'm all for it."

But Arya was dead serious. "I don't want to grow up because then I wouldn't be your little sister anymore, I'd be _married_ and so would you." She spat it out like a swear word.

Jon reached over to smooth a strand of dark hair behind her ear. "You'll always be my girl, all right? No matter what."

"Even if I get as fat as Aunt Lysa?" she asked in a small voice.

"Yes. Even if you turn into a humpback whale." And he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

 

*

 

She was standing in his doorway again.

"I've got something for you," she announced, shrugging off the straps of her backpack and unzipping the inner compartment to produce an item wrapped tissue paper. She handed it to Jon. It was an uneven ceramic mug engraved with WORLD'S BEST BIG BROTHER.

Turning it over in his hands, he raised one eyebrow questioningly.

"Relax, Robb's is in there." She tilted her head in the direction of the backpack.

It wasn't bad work at all. Arya had always paid more attention than him in art class. "Is this my going-away present?"

She shook her head. Closing the distance between them, she stood on tip-toe to kiss the corner of his mouth - a gesture so sweet, so simple, so familiar that he had to resist the urge to pick her up and swing her around as he used to. He had to resist a lot of urges, these days.

“You've got to come back for your going-away present,” she informed him.

“I've got to … Arya, that defeats the whole purpose.”

“You better make damn sure to come home soon then, don’t you?”

He could see she was only half joking. “Arya,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For leaving. For growing up. For everything.” _For loving you_.

“It’s not your fault,” she told him, dully, and there were tears shining in her eyes.

“It’s not yours either.” He reached for her wrists, laid his thumb over her pulse. “Hey. You still my girl?”

“Always.” And there it was. No hesitation. Arya had adored him beyond reason since she was old enough to crawl into his arms. The problem was, he was no longer willing to let go of her.

This time, he took her face in both hands and kissed her properly.


End file.
